Hand crafted wood cabinets are highly sought after by consumers. Because of the skill of the artisan involved in making such cabinets, they generally present a more aesthetically pleasing cabinet front and function much better overall than mass-produced cabinets. Part of this overall better function is dependant upon the mounting of the drawers within the cabinet for a smooth, reliable outward and inward sliding movement. A drawer track assembly functions both to support the drawer within the cabinet and facilitate the sliding action of the drawer into and out of the cabinet. Typically, such an assembly includes a drawer rail member attached to the drawer and a guide bar member attached to the wall of the cabinet. These members cooperate to support the drawer at a desired position, both vertically and horizontally, relative to the cabinet as well as provide sliding action therebetween so that the drawer may be slid into and out of the cabinet.
There are a variety of different drawer track assemblies available to the cabinet builder. For example, one such known assembly includes a pair of elongate rails that are mounted to opposing upright sides of the drawer with each rail carrying at least one rotatable wheel. Each wheel rotationally engages a guide that is in turn supported by the wall of the cabinet. In addition, at times at least one additional track is interposed between the described guide and rail.
Proper sliding motion of the drawer requires proper positioning of the various elements of each drawer track assembly. In a typical prior art cabinet, the drawer rail member is mounted to the exterior side wall of the drawer and the guide bar member is mounted either directly to the cabinet wall or to a shim or spacer that properly spaces the guide bar member from the side wall of the cabinet. The cabinet maker by the use of appropriately sized wooden shims or spacers is able to properly space the guide bar from the cabinet side wall so as to mount the drawer for sliding movement. Where cabinets have face frames, the guide bar is usually anchored in the front to the face frame. Since the back of the cabinet typically does not have the equivalent of a face frame to serve as an anchor, shims or spacers are usually required and typically take the form of an elongate, rectangular block of wood that is attached to the cabinet interior wall surface and runs substantially from the front to the rear of the cabinet along the interior wall surface. Standardization reduces the number of different block sizes needed for different size face frame margins, but still requires the artisan to cut the blocks precisely. These systems provide no easy adjustability in the positioning of the guide bar member that is attached to the cabinet. Additionally, fittings are often placed over the back end of the guide bar to constrain the movement of the drawer inwardly. Where shims or spacers have been used to mount the guide bar, attachment of the fitting can be difficult.
Prior art devices, other than wooden shims, for supporting a drawer track assembly do exist and are commercially available, but known devices are not readily adjustable. Furthermore, none of these devices are positionable on the interior side wall of the cabinet. The known devices must be mounted on the back wall of the cabinet or suspended by a hanger if there is no backwall. Additionally, they are not generally readily interchangeable between the left and right sides and therefore the cabinet maker must stock two different mounts if those devices are used in the construction of a cabinet.
While the above system for installing drawers in cabinets works well in the cabinet shop where the cabinet maker has complete control of the environment and the ability to keep the cabinet walls plumb and square, such is not always the case at the final installation site. That is, during the process of constructing the cabinet, the cabinet maker is able to maintain the walls positioned as desired and to attach the guide bar member in the proper location so that the drawer slides into and out of the cabinet properly. When the cabinet is installed at a building site, however, the floors and walls of the site may not be level or plumb. Shims will probably be used at the building site to level the cabinets relative to the building site, but the end result is that the cabinet walls may be shifted relative to each other to accommodate the geometry of the building site, which in turn may cause the drawer track assembly and thus the drawer to become misadjusted. The drawer, which at the cabinet shop once slid smoothly into and out of the cabinet, may now bind and slide grudgingly, thereby diminishing both the value of the cabinet and the cabinet maker's reputation in the eyes of the consumer.
It would be desirable to have an apparatus that would allow the drawer track assembly to be adjustably positioned within in the cabinet both during the crafting of the cabinet and, when necessary, later at the time of its installation at a building site, and furthermore that was useable without modification on both sides of the drawer to engage the drawer guide.